


Instant Family

by cruisedirector, Dementordelta



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurors, Babies, Community: snape_potter, Daily Prophet, Domestic, Endearments, Falling In Love, Families of Choice, Fatherhood, Kid Fic, M/M, Magic, Mentor Snape, Muggles, Oral Sex, Parenthood, Potions, Resolved Sexual Tension, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Snape Lives, Snarry-A-Thon Challenge, Spells & Enchantments, Stuffed Toys, Teaching, Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-25
Updated: 2011-05-25
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:38:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dementordelta/pseuds/Dementordelta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape is the very last person Harry Potter would turn to when family complications arise, isn’t he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Snarry-a-Thon. Many thanks to isidore13 for beta-reading.

  
When Severus Snape peered through the charmed mirror to see what was causing the ruckus in his waiting room, he was met with a most unwelcome sight. There stood Harry Potter, erstwhile hero of the wizarding world -- and the man largely credited with saving Snape's life, no matter how many times Snape insisted that he had saved his own life by taking proper precautions. To make matters worse, Potter was bouncing a crying infant on his shoulder.

Snape tried to think of a way to pretend that he was out before he finally sighed and gave up, opening the door that separated his office from the outer room. "Potter!" he barked. "Is that a baby?"

Potter had turned, smiling feebly. He looked terrible, as if he hadn't been eating or sleeping. Probably he insisted on taking over all the major cases in the Auror Office to win more glory for himself. "Very observant," he replied, though without his usual arrogance. "I need help."

"It is my painful duty to inform you that the time to use a birth control potion is _before_ the young lady becomes pregnant," Snape said, wincing as the small creature let out a very grand wail.

As was typical of him, Potter rolled his eyes. "Thank you very much for that, but the baby isn't mine. Well -- she is mine, but I'm not her father." He bounced on the balls of his feet as the red-faced tiny girl began to cry again.

"Of course you aren't," Snape scoffed. He had glimpsed some sort of story in _The Daily Prophet_ concerning Potter and a Muggle and a baby -- an embarrassing scene for the Ministry at a public event -- but as he always did where Harry Potter was involved, he'd tried not to pay much attention. "Very well, then, explain what you are doing here with that...creature."

Potter switched the baby to the other arm. "I'm told she has colic," he said. "And that there may be potions that could help."

Snape crossed his arms, watching the baby warily before sliding his gaze over to Potter. "Of course there are potions," he said, taking a step closer to get a good look at the infant's scrunched face. If he had paid any attention in Potions class at Hogwarts, Potter would have not only known that there were potions, but been able to guess several of the ingredients. "What are you calling it?"

"Lily."

Potter colored a bit as Snape schooled his features to look disapproving. "And you expect me to believe the child isn't a byblow? I would have expected you to reserve that name for one of your own." Before Potter could comment, Snape whirled, striding into his office with a curt gesture indicating that Potter should follow.

"I doubt that I'll ever have a child, and this one is..." Harry sighed, following Snape into the back. "It's a long story. The short version is, a Muggle woman I've never heard of showed up at the Ministry, claiming the baby was mine. Then she disappeared. The Ministry investigated, and it turned out the mother was dying of some condition I've also never heard of, but apparently only wizards carry it." He jiggled the baby around so Snape could see her face. "Maybe she'd seen a _Daily Prophet_ somewhere or heard of me from whoever gave her both the baby and the disease, but she was adamant that I should raise this child. All the baby's living relatives are Muggles. This one isn't -- she can make things spark when she's angry."

"I did hear something about the incident at the Ministry. I thought it was mere gossip about you." Scowling, Snape cleared his throat. "Not everyone follows your exploits. How long has she been ill?"

Potter peered at the baby. To his apparent surprise, she appeared perfectly calm at the moment, watching Snape curiously. "Every time she eats, she starts screaming a little while afterward. Sometimes it goes on for hours. Mrs. Weasley said it was the formula I fed her, so I've tried lots of different formulas, goat's milk, even a wet nurse. It's always the same."

Snape leaned in closer, sniffing the baby's breath. "And Moll-- that is, Mrs. Weasley didn't give you her vaunted advice about what else to do for colic?"

Potter's laugh was feeble. "Mrs. Weasley, and Mr. Weasley, and Percy Weasley, and Mrs. Granger, and Mr. Granger, and Neville's gran. Everyone's an expert. And every one of them gave me different advice."

Touching the baby's forehead, Snape determined that she did not have a fever. With luck, that meant that she wasn't dehydrated. "When did the crying start?"

"Right after I ended up with her. Maybe even before." With a sigh, Harry jiggled the infant, though she was quite calm, still watching Snape as he touched the glands under her chin. "They called me to St. Mungo's. The mother had used some kind of Binding Spell, though how she could have learned it, they had no idea. The Ministry says it can be broken, but it will be safer if I keep her until they can switch it to someone else. I had no idea wizard adoptions were so complicated." Harry offered a tired smile. "The Weasleys think I should keep her."

Somehow this statement was more shocking than the presence of Potter with a baby in Snape's office. "You mean you're considering _not_ keeping her?" he demanded, straightening.

"How can I keep a baby? I'm training to be an Auror!"

"Apparently there are consequences to being the Chosen One that interfere with your plans, then." Snape was unable to keep his disapproval out of his voice. He deliberately looked away from the calm little face and at Potter, who frowned as the baby started fussing, reaching for Snape's hair.

"Do you seriously think it's that simple? What do I do if every family looking for a famous name for a godfather decides to perform a spell to make me guardian of their children?"

The tiny grasping fingers had found Snape's hair. He glared at Potter as if expecting him to do something about it. "If you break the Binding Spell, you may seriously damage this child's magic."

"But at St. Mungo's, they said they would be able to transfer it, or something." He jiggled the baby as she whimpered, still clutching Snape's hair. Snorting, Snape bent to accommodate the small fingers.

"At St. Mungo's, they don't always care about the consequences of the treatment as much as the results." He briefly touched his throat, remembering his last experiences with the Healers.

Potter was watching him in surprise, though apparently not at Snape's recollection of the experiences that had almost ended his life so that Potter could get credit for saving the world. "She likes you," he said. "Usually, she's very clingy and won't let anyone touch her but me. I was going to hire a full time nurse, but two of them quit the first day."

Gently disentangling his hair from the child's fist, Snape offered her a single finger. "Obviously she is a child of superior sensibilities, despite having lived with you. Perhaps it would be best to break the Binding Spell if you don't have any attachment to her. Growing up without a family obviously didn't do you any harm." He tried to slide the finger free, but Lily immediately began to cry.

"That's not fair." Potter bounced the baby so hard that Snape reached to take her from him. "She'll have a family, a real family, with two parents, not one parent who's always at the Ministry or doing dangerous work." His eyes widened as Lily stopped crying and cooed.

"Life isn't fair, Potter, surely you've realized that by now." Snape caught himself stroking the warm, silky hair on the child's head and stopped himself immediately. She settled down against his shoulder at once. "Very well -- I can give you something now to alleviate the symptoms, and can tailor a brew for her that will eliminate the cause. Needless to say, the customized potion will take longer to prepare, as I will have to take several samples to assess the root cause."

Potter was shaking his head slightly, watching Snape. "Have you spent a lot of time around babies since the war? You won't have to take blood from her, will you?"

"Since I went into business after my...recovery, I have had to deal with every variety of conditions in every instance of human misery and suffering. Yes, I will need a bit of blood. Also saliva and vomit. The blood extraction will be as painless as possible. I know you think I am a monster..."

"Well, I have plenty of saliva and vomit. On this shirt and my trousers and the laundry at home."

"I will need fresh samples." He held the baby close as he walked to the glass door of his cabinet. "As of now, I have only your word that she experiences fits of screaming. She seems perfectly well-behaved to me."

"Wait an hour till she's hungry again, and then another hour till she's been fed." Potter scowled at him, seeming to sway on his feet. "Maybe you should raise her."

"No authority, wizarding or Muggle, would trust me with a child." He retrieved a bottle, handing it to Potter. "Uncork that. You remember how to do that, don't you?"

Blushing a bit, Harry did so, sloshing a bit of the contents out because he was watching Snape with the baby. "They might if I told them to," he retorted. "What did you mean about how breaking the Binding Spell would affect her magic?"

Snape pointed to a beaker on the counter. "Pour out half a measure. The smallest quantity marked." Absently, he stroked the back of Lily's head again. "A Binding Spell is powerful magic. Similar to the spell -- " He cleared his throat. "-- the magic your own mother used to protect you. Can you imagine what breaking it at a young age would have done to you? It may very well interfere with the natural progression of her magical abilities."

Potter glanced up, then concentrated on the beaker, pouring in the potion. "I don't understand how someone I never met, who had no training at Hogwarts or anywhere like it, could have cast a spell like that. Don't Binding Spells usually need -- I don't know, hair or something, the way Polyjuice does? Is there a way to stop other people from doing the same thing?"

He was paying little attention to his work, as usual. Snape looked critically at the beaker, making a noise for Potter to stop pouring. "Not too much! Remember how small her system is compared to a great lump like yours." Shifting the baby again, he reached for an eyedropper. "There may have been blood involved. Many powerful spells depend upon blood. She could have come into possession of your blood when you were in hospital or may even be a distant relation. Such things are not unheard of."

"They did a test at St. Mungo's to make sure I was telling the truth when I said she wasn't mine. I think Malfoy tried to convince everyone that I was lying and she was obviously my love child. They didn't tell me if we were related other than what I already knew -- that I couldn't possibly be her father."

"Because you're a virgin, I suppose." Snape snorted softly, holding the eyedropper to Lily's mouth and squeezing in slowly. "You obviously need to find out more about how the spell was done. The mother is deceased, you said?" He paused to refill the dropper.

"I never even met her, really." Potter reached out to help support the baby's head. "She was dying -- delirious. I couldn't tell whether it was a magical malady or what. I just told them to be sure the baby didn't have it too."

Nodding in reluctant approval, Snape set down the dropper and reached for a cloth to wipe Lily's mouth. When she made a distressed noise, he pointed for Potter to retrieve it instead. "There are also spells that involve semen. Even if you didn't engage in intercourse with this woman, perhaps she had one of your paramours capture a sample."

"Not possible." Perhaps Potter had been faithful to Miss Weasley, thought Snape. "There's really no way any witch obtained my, um, my semen." The infant interrupted whatever Snape might have replied by whimpering softly. "She must be getting hungry."

"Take Li-- the baby and see if she is more agreeable after the first dose." Harry took her from Snape, sighing audibly in relief when she did not immediately begin to cry. Snape had lifted his hand to stroke her before he reconsidered and dropped it. "How long are her screaming fits, on average? Do they last longer at night?"

"More than half the night, usually."

That explained Potter's obvious exhaustion. "Don't you have help with her when she's crying?"

"I stayed with the Weasleys a couple of times, but Molly has her own grandchildren now. And I think she's pretty upset that Ginny and I are never -- well, like I said. I never slept with any witch."

Turning to hide his reaction, Snape poured out the potion into a flask, rinsing out the beaker and eyedropper to give to Potter. "You can't be a good parent if you're exhausted. If you're thinking about giving her up, why would you give her your mother's name?"

"I don't know." Potter bit his lip, looking down at Lily's calm face. "When she's screaming, I feel like I'm doing everything wrong, and she'd be better off with absolutely anyone else but me. I keep hoping some relative will surface, or something. I mean, she has no one right now."

"What is that to you? You have no tie to her." Snape packed up the items and shrunk them, gesturing to Potter's pocket for permission to tuck them inside.

"I don't have no affection -- I really care about her. I just -- bloody hell, how could I keep her?"

"You could find someone to help you." Snape crossed his arms over his chest. "You're the most popular wizard in a century; surely there is someone you could trust to take care of a fairly harmless young person long enough for you to get adequate sleep at night."

"She deserves more than someone who'll take care of her. She deserves a family. Not a mostly-absentee guardian and a nurse." Potter watched Snape stroke her head again.

"You should know that the Binding Spell wouldn't have worked if you were not a good match for the baby. Don't make any decisions before you get a proper night's sleep."

"Don't make me feel more guilty than I already do." Potter sank down in the laboratory chair, rocking the baby. "I know I'm a good match. You're the first new person she's met who hasn't made her cry."

Snape blew out a frustrated breath. "Why do you think that is?"

"I have no idea." Potter's laugh was feeble. He suppressed a yawn, not entirely successfully. "Maybe she likes lonely men. Not that I assume -- I mean, you probably like living alone."

Rolling his eyes, Snape began, "I live alone because I --" But that was none of Potter's business. Snape pressed his lips together. "This is not about me. This is about someone who is dependent on you, who cannot possibly be lonely as the hero of the wizarding world, but I would think might understand from your own childhood. If you plan to give her up, do so before she has concrete memories of you and of losing you."

"She's a baby. She won't have any memories of me. I'm the one who'll have memories."

"You don't sound like a man who is willing to casually give up a child entrusted to his care." Unable to help himself, Snape reached down to slide his hand through the baby's soft curls. "My prescription for you is to get a full night's sleep and leave complicated decisions to more rational moments. I can give you instructions for the potion I've given you, and we can set up a time to collect the samples I'll need." Potter was practically falling asleep in the chair, his hands no longer steady on Lily's back. "Potter, are you listening? How long has it been since you've had a full night's rest?"

Potter twitched away from him, then straightened a bit as Lily wailed. "I knew she'd get hungry again. I don't sleep very well anyway. I have to feed her."

Snape huffed, hesitating, then reached for Lily. He wasn't doing any of this for Potter in the first place. "I live over this shop. Go upstairs and get some sleep," he barked. "I will feed her and administer an additional dose should the colic begin to manifest again. You are forbidden to come downstairs until you've had several hours of sleep."

Whether Potter was blinking at him in surprise or exhaustion, Snape couldn't tell. "Why do _you_ want to take care of her?" he asked suspiciously.

"I merely want her to recover, and by coming to me, you have effectively entrusted her to my care. My advice as your potion master is to get some sleep so you can be an effective father." Snape glared, realizing that he was clutching the baby protectively.

"I'm not her--" Potter flushed, then sighed. "Are you telling me to go sleep in your bed?"

"Apparently it won't be the first man's bed you've slept in."

"I suppose Slytherins are opposed to that on principle."

"If they were, I would have disqualified myself from ever heading that House." Why was he telling Potter this? Snape flushed, stroking the baby's back distractedly. "Now stop scowling at me and ignoring my advice when it looks like you are half dead on your feet. Don't you trust me with her?"

Nodding, Potter got wearily to his feet. "All right. Mostly because I can't keep my eyes open, I'll go sleep in your bed. Wake me up if she needs something."

Finally. Reaching into his wand pocket, Snape turned the sign in the outer office to 'closed'. "Remember, you are forbidden to come down until you've had several hours of sleep." Potter followed his gesture to the stairs. Ironically, Snape added, "No need to thank me, of course."

"Since you've made it clear that this isn't about me, I didn't think you wanted me to." Potter paused. "Professor. I'm -- I really am very grateful."

"Show your gratitude by following my instructions." Snape watched him walk up the stairs. He felt perplexed by everything that had happened, not least by the fact that he had a cooing child in his arms. Goat's milk, at least, was easy to modify, and the baby watched him silently as he shifted her from one arm to the other, transfiguring a beaker into a baby bottle and sterilizing it with a spell.

The most comfortable chair Snape owned was in his bedroom beneath the window. When he arrived upstairs, Potter was fast asleep, face down on his bed, looking like not even the return of Voldemort could rouse him.

"No crying," Snape admonished Lily quietly. She raised her tiny hands in fists as he offered her the bottle. He watched her, then watched Potter, shaking his head, reminding himself not to stare at either one. It wasn't as if he needed memories of either one in this room when they would both soon be gone.


	2. Chapter 2

He heard Potter before he saw him again. He'd left Potter sleeping after feeding Lily, using his wand to lower a blanket over the sprawled form and shutting the lights. There was a familiar squeak of bed springs and the muffled sound of footfalls over the bare floor. Then, most telling, a flush and the sound of running water. Snape made an adjustment to the pink blanket in the baby's cot. "Daddy's awake, pri--" He glanced at the door of the small kitchen since it was the just down the stairs from the bedroom. Why was it so ridiculously easy to call female children of no particular merit "princess"?

"Sorry," came Potter's sleep-rough apology from the doorway.

Snape straightened away from the makeshift cot. Potter looked as sheepish as he sounded, but at least visibly more rested than he had four hours ago when he'd barged into Snape's life. Office. "For what--obeying instructions for once?"

"For being a lot of trouble." Potter's eyes were alert at least, scanning the small kitchen until they spotted the cot in the corner. "What's--" He frowned, rubbing a hand over his face, making sure his glasses were in place. "That?"

"A baby mobile," Snape supplied, folding his arms defensively over his chest. Potter padded on bare feet over to the improvised nursery. "Surely you have one at home."

"Not one like that." Potter stopped in front of the cot, staring down as a tiny flame of fire erupted from the Welsh green's snout, singeing the tail of the Norwegian ridgeback. The dragons were about three inches long, but quite, if Snape did say so himself, life-like. The ridgeback squeaked in outrage, diving round one of the fluffy clouds that comprised the rest of the mobile. Lily cooed in delight, reaching upward with a chubby fist for one of the tiny tails just disappearing into one of the clouds.

When Potter realized he was looking at the mobile just as intently as Lily, he shrugged but didn't step back. "Hers at home has sheep," he explained. At Snape's openly disbelieving look, Potter added, "And, er, rainbows." He watched another pass of the dragons, who swooped around opposite sides of a cloud and nearly collided, racing neck and neck, bumping tiny snouts. For a moment Snape couldn't tell who was more fascinated, Potter or Lily.

Potter dragged his gaze away and looked like he was about to thank Snape again, or worse, apologize for something. Instead he said, "She's not crying."

"Nor indeed has she been," Snape said. Potter looked speechless at that. "Her diagnostic potion is brewing." He pointed to the cauldron on the counter with a tiny self-contained fire beneath it. "She was, er, very generous with the necessary samples."

Potter laughed at that, his face looking much less careworn than it had a few hours ago, even though Snape had merely meant to mention that he would be charging extra for diaper changing services. "Any ideas?" Potter asked, fiddling with the pink blanket. Lily cooed a bit, clapping her hands together.

"Many, no conclusions though." One of the miniature dragons let out a bellow and two plumes of fire spat out and blended, making, briefly, a fireball as big as one of Lily's fists. The ball glowed red for a moment, then blue then green before dissipating into a shower of sparks that fizzled out before getting anywhere close to the cot.

"Isn't--" Potter began, momentarily distracted when Lily made as if to reach for a lingering spark. "Isn't that thing supposed to lull her to sleep?" Potter asked.

"If you prefer that sort of thing," Snape said with disdain. He flicked his wand at the mobile. The dragons transfigured into hippogriffs, darting round and round with outspread wings in soothing, mesmerizing circles over Lily's head. Within moments she yawned and her eyelids were drooping.

Unfortunately so were Potter's.

"Look away, Potter, unless you plan on spending the night." He hadn't meant it to sound like such a thing was on offer but Potter flushed and looked away.

"So--"

"Don't."

"--rry."

Snape glared at him. He didn't like feeling awkward in his own kitchen now that their miniature chaperone was drowsing.

Potter rubbed one bare foot over the other. "Maybe you should be her dad," he said, obviously intending it for a weak joke, but something in his expression changed as he said it. "She...likes you."

Snorting, Snape said, "She's an _infant_. She'd like anyone with a dragon mobile."

"She's never liked anyone before. She screamed even when Molly Weasley held her. I'm the only one she'll let take care of her for any amount of time."

Snape narrowed his eyes, taking in Potter's appearance. He didn't just look exhausted -- he looked gaunt. "When was the last time you had a proper meal?" he asked crossly.

"I had breakfast."

"What did you eat?" He watched Potter's mouth move as Potter tried to remember. Probably two bites of something before the baby knocked it out of his hands, and probably two bites of dinner the night before, interrupted when the baby started crying. With a sigh of frustration, Snape opened the pantry and barked, "Sit."

At least Potter was being obedient. He sank into a chair, running a hand through his messy hair. "Are my eating habits somehow affecting her?"

"No, you idiot, they're affecting you. You can't be a competent parent when you're starving yourself on top of getting no sleep."

Potter laughed softly. "Maybe I should hire the nurse for me instead of for her. Although I don't know if she'd tolerate having anyone else in the house -- she gets fussy when people visit. I think she scared Neville into thinking he never wants children."

Rather than declaring his opinion that it would be no great loss to the wizarding world should there be no more Longbottoms, Snape waved his wand at the stovetop, making a burner jump to life. Potter jumped a bit as well, though Lily remained peacefully asleep, arms above her head as if someone had demanded that she put her hands in the air. "I hope you like ready meals," Snape muttered. He had been planning to save the fish till the weekend, since it was his favorite. "No tea for you, Potter, you need to sleep whenever you have the opportunity. I'll brew you some chamomile."

Potter's eyes looked only half-focused as they followed Snape across the room, watching him retrieve the package, aim his wand, and produce two servings of fish and chips, which he brought to the table. "You're cooking for me?" asked Potter, clearly confused.

"If you aren't going to take care of yourself..." A pair of forks flew out of the drawer and clattered on the table, making Potter jump. A small whimper arose from the cot, then fell silent again. Snape pointed at the food. " _Eat._ "

"Yes, sir." There was only a trace of mockery in Potter's voice. "I know -- you could adopt both of us."

"Do you honestly believe that any court in the Wizarding world would grant me custody of either the Chosen One or his illegitimate spawn?"

"She's not my..." Potter closed his mouth, glared, then smiled unexpectedly. "I know, I'll tell them she's yours."

Snape sat down hard in the chair across from him, never certain whether Potter was serious or joking. Of course, in Potter's mental state, he might not know himself. "I have exactly as much likelihood of getting a witch pregnant as you, Potter."

The cut did little to damage Potter's humor -- or his appetite. "You're better with her than I am. She even cried when Molly sang to her." He'd polished off nearly half the chips already.

Privately Snape, having heard various Weasleys harmonizing over the years, didn't wonder at that. "Anyone would be better than a half-starved, exhausted young man with little experience of what a baby needs." Snape hadn't really meant to say that last part aloud. Instead of apologizing, Snape dug into his fish. "Just do the opposite of whatever your aunt would do."

Potter snorted around a chip. "You mean actually care about Lily? I've already got that one covered." He glanced over toward the corner where the hippogriffs were making shushing gestures at each other, wings covering their beaks. Then he looked at Snape with curiosity. "Why are you so good with her?"

"Have you forgotten so quickly that I was a teacher? Surely even an attention span as short as yours --"

Potter was laughing now, the haggard lines on his face smoothing out when he did. There was a gurgling noise from the corner and one of the hippogriffs glared at Potter. "Being a teacher has nothing to do with it, we weren't babies," he sputtered.

"The principle is, nevertheless, the same," said Snape, not budging.

"If you're going to tell me you changed Draco Malfoy's diapers, I'd rather not know," Potter said, though Snape noticed his supposed revulsion wasn't putting Potter off his dinner.

"What an appalling imagination you have," Snape said with a frown.

Potter shrugged. "Okay, so I'll grant that you looked after kids, but it really isn't the same thing as having a baby crying all night long."

"You were obviously never Crabbe's Head of House," Snape pointed out. Potter laughed again then looked chagrined when the sound elicited another louder gurgle from the cot.

"I think she's awake." Potter looked so miserable and worried that Snape gestured for him to remain in his seat, standing instead to check on the spawn. They both heard it, though Snape saw the tiny sparks that erupted from the pile of blankets, a tiny pink stream of sparks. The hippogriffs transformed back into tiny dragons. A bit of triumphant flame spewed from one snout and the race was on, round and round while Lily laughed in delight.

"Has she ever --" Snape began, turning toward the table.

Potter was already rising. "Ever done that? No. She's made sparks before but never...done anything."

Snape stood over the makeshift nursery and watched Lily clap her tiny hands together as if urging the dragons on. "She can't...harm herself, can she?" Potter asked, clearly worried. They watched together for a moment though Snape wasn't sure what they were looking for -- evidence of a tiny wand or an overly helpful House Elf perhaps.

"No," Snape said firmly. "Initial manifestations can be strong but there isn't enough power in them to --" He broke off, something worrying at the back of his mind.

"If you're sure," said Potter, glancing up at Snape, his expression changing at once. "You aren't sure."

"Binding spells can be unpredictable." Against his will he glanced at Potter's scar. "You were much more powerful than you should have been because of...what happened to you."

Potter looked like he needed to sit down. Unthinkingly Snape put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him back to the chair. "So...so..." He looked up, searching Snape's face. "What are you saying?"

"That colic may be the least of your worries," said Snape, walking over to the cot as Potter started to get up again. "You finish eating." Snape peered suspiciously at Lily, but she ignored him, watching the dragons dive after one another on the mobile. It seemed too soon for her to be either awake or hungry, but to be on the safe side, he went to warm some modified formula.

Potter watched him anxiously, but at least he took another bite of the fish. "I never understood the rules about underage magic, since underage wizards aren't allowed to do magic, yet the ability to do magic is a requirement for getting into all the schools of witchcraft and wizardry. Draco and Hermione both knew spells before they ever got to Hogwarts -- I'm sure his parents didn't care about the rules and she didn't even know the rules. But if Lily can do things like this when she's so small, will the Ministry come after her?"

"If she's raised with proper care and education, her magic will never get so out of control that the Ministry would have any reason to take any interest in it."

"Education? I thought you were going to say 'discipline.'" Potter took a sip of his tea. "What do you suggest now -- hiring a tutor as well as a nurse?"

Lily made a small whimpering noise and Snape glared in the direction of the cot. He was reluctantly coming to an unpleasant conclusion. "I think it might be best if you allowed me to keep her under observation for a few days."

"You mean...leave her here with you?" Looking vastly relieved, Potter set down his cup. "Listen, I know you think I was kidding when I said you should keep her..."

"Not leave her here with me," Snape cut him off. "She may show a certain -- tolerance -- towards me because I can keep her comfortable, but if the binding spell is as strong as I suspect, that won't last if you disappear." He tried to keep his expression neutral. "I'm afraid that I will need to observe you both."

He expected Potter to object, but Potter only slumped down a bit in his seat, contemplating the burnt end of a chip. "Do you mean you want me to stay here with her?" he asked. "Grimmauld Place is bigger -- you could come there with us."

Apparently it eased Potter's mind so much to have the decision taken off his hands that he wasn't even going to bother to complain. "As much as I'm sure we would both be more comfortable in a larger space, I need equipment that I have here. And I have other clients. It would be best if you stayed here -- and stayed out of the way as much as possible."

Potter was quiet for a few minutes, glancing toward the cot, inhaling the scent of the chamomile without actually drinking the rest of the tea. "I could help you, maybe," he said finally, sounding surprisingly chastened. "I know you think I'm rubbish at Potions but I did learn some things from your book."

Snape started to argue -- being this close to Potter _always_ made him want to argue, even if Potter had said Snape was the most brilliant Potions Master in the history of Hogwarts. He realized, however, that Potter looked so desperately in need of something concrete to do. Only such desperation could have brought him to Snape's shop that afternoon. "All right," he said with a nod.

Potter looked momentarily suspicious, as though he'd expected Snape to argue. Instead he nodded back, eying the formula Snape was preparing. "You think something is wrong with her." He'd finished his dinner -- and some of Snape's as well. When Snape didn't reply, Potter looked a little ill. "You think there's something I'm doing that --" His voice broke and he ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

Pursing his lips, Snape turned away. "Your mother was a very skilled witch and even her spell to protect you wasn't perfect. This child's mother -- or whoever cast the spell -- could have no hope of an unflawed spell." He shook his head, whipping his wand toward the stove so that the formula measured out into the bottle. "In many ways, any Binding Spell is much like a Horcrux --" he began.

Potter looked shocked. He pushed away from the table. "What, no -- a Horcrux?" He looked toward the cot then back at Snape. "You can't mean that."

"All magic is balanced, Potter," Snape replied, catching the bottle of formula as it drifted toward his hand. "A Horcrux is formed upon death, a Binding Spell upon life. One to preserve a broken soul, one to keep a soul from breaking." He bent over the cot, shaking the bottle gently. "Both are quite powerful."

Potter had joined him by the cot, reaching in for Lily. "Let me," he said, scooping her up. "This, at least, I can do, even if she starts crying right after."

Lily, as if to demonstrate the contrary nature of babyhood, showed no inclination towards tears. Indeed, as her mouth wrapped around the bottle, she looked positively cherubic, as if a tear had never formed in her eye.

"Powerful magic also requires a lot of nutrition," Snape said, watching the level of formula sinking in the bottle. He didn't realize he was reaching out a finger until Lily took it. "You must have been eating all the time as a child."

Potter made a snorting noise. "Well, I was always hungry," Potter said absently, making a ridiculous face at the bundle in his arms. Lily's eyes crinkled and she sputtered around the nipple of the bottle. "Do you have another bedroom? I can keep her in my room --" He broke off when he saw Snape's face.

"I live over my shop--there is only one bedroom. You may have it --" He held up one hand to forestall Potter's protests. "I can transform the couch in the sitting room. You and Lily will need more space."

Potter looked troubled, but he dutifully held Lily over his shoulder, handing the empty bottle off to Snape while he patted her back. "Since you were talking about horcruxes," he began slowly. "I assume Dumbledore must have told you what he suspected about Voldemort and me."

"He did not." Resisting the instinct to tell Potter not to say that name, Snape pursed his lips. He knew there were details that Potter had never told the Ministry about the fall of the Dark Lord and his own role in it, just as there were details that Snape had kept to himself. Other facts had made much more sense in retrospect. "It wasn't difficult to figure out why the Dark Lord had had his most loyal followers protecting certain objects, and once I knew that, it wasn't difficult to figure out why the Headmaster thought you needed to be offered up like a lamb to the slaughter."

Lily let out a small belch, and Potter paused to lift her higher onto his shoulder, rubbing her back. "I could always tell, when I was in the presence of another horcrux, even before I had any idea what they were or what it meant that I could sense them," he said slowly. "If a Binding Spell is sort of the reverse of a horcrux, would it be easier for someone to perform one on me than an ordinary person, because I was -- because of what he did to me?"

"I have no idea. I don't believe there are any precedents." Potter had turned so that Lily was facing Snape, her eyes fixed on him. They were darker than Potter's, more hazel than green, yet somehow even as an infant she had the same wide-eyed gaze. "Yet another reason to observe you both."

Sighing, Potter turned back to Snape. "I'm really sorry for all the trouble," he said. His head cocked toward the baby. "She isn't crying."

"Give her to me. You should go back to bed." It was easier to dismiss Potter by reminding him of his exhaustion than to mention that Snape had a few more examinations he wanted to perform while Lily was relatively calm. Particularly since Snape intended to see if he could agitate her into performing magic again.

Potter slid closer, giving the bundle over to Snape's arms, surely a mark of his exhaustion that he barely demurred at being ordered back to bed. Their hands tangled briefly, then Potter was reaching to cup the back of Lily's head, looking down at her. "You'll wake me if you need me?" Potter said, with the first hint of reluctance he'd displayed about leaving her in Snape's care.

"Of course," Snape said, though he made no effort to make it sound as though he would actually do so. Potter looked like he was going to thank Snape again, so Snape made a shooing motion and Potter at last acquiesced. Snape looked down at Lily while they both listened to Potter's footsteps on the bare floor.


	3. Chapter 3

Potter slept through the night. Neither Snape nor Lily did, but neither did either of them suffer bouts of crying. And Snape succeeded in startling her into another manifestation of magic, not as showy as changing the mobile, but equally satisfying. He'd fed her twice more during the night, transfigured the cot into a crib and set it in the sitting room where he slept on the sofa. He'd woken up quite early to see her watching him, awake and alert but not crying, through the slats of the crib, and he was sure he was imagining it when she smiled at him. "Gas," he told himself, but he let her play with his finger while he warmed the formula, and they played sparks afterward, Snape sending fireworks over her crib while she reached for them. When he insisted it was time to go back to sleep, she'd countered with a weak sputter of sparks on her own.

Looking less bleary-eyed than before, Potter stood in the doorway as if uncertain of his welcome, before Snape pointed at a bottle on the counter. "Give her that," he commanded, juggling the formula and Lily's blankets.

"Yes, sir," Potter said with such ease that Snape didn't think he meant it mockingly. "What is it?"

"The colic formula." He brought Lily over to Potter. "Administer a dose of that -- it should measure out automatically on the dropper, then burp her."

Even rumpled from sleep, Potter looked rested, and more importantly, delighted to see Lily, who looked like any normal infant when not engaged in a fit of crying. Dutifully he gave her the dose, wiping her lower lip when a bit of it dribbled out. "That's a good princess," he cooed, turning her gently. While over Potter's shoulder, her tiny hand made a grab for Snape's hair. Potter noticed and smiled. "Maybe I should just get a black wig."

"Very amusing," Snape said, though he bent down slightly so that she could tug at a strand of it, cooing just before erupting in the required belch. "Do you have Auror training today?"

Bouncing Lily very lightly, Potter turned to face him. "Um, what's today?" Before Snape could answer he was shaking his head. "Wait, no, I brought her to you last night because it was Friday night and I knew I had the whole weekend to think of something else if you --" His face colored and he immediately looked down, making a face at the bundle in his arms.

"If I what?" Snape had a feeling he knew what was coming.

Potter shrugged. "Turned me away."

"I know you have always thought I was a monster --" Snape began, not letting himself be distracted by the tiny fist reaching for his hair.

"I haven't," Potter burst out, looking again as though he was a First Year and nervous and defiant all at the same time. "I've always known you were just a man, with prejudices and loyalties just like any other man. I just never thought any of those things were the same as mine." He watched as Lily, unable to obtain a fistful of Snape's hair, settled for Potter's. He made a face when she tugged too hard. "Face it, we've never been in the same room this long before without trying to kill each other."

Snape rolled his eyes a bit -- after all those years he had spent trying to keep Potter alive, Potter still believed Snape had wished to torment him. "You're only saying that because you don't know what's for breakfast," he warned. Since he had not expected company, Snape had only canned kippers.

"Why don't you let me buy breakfast? It's the least I can do. I've got plenty of money. Is there anyone around here who delivers by Floo, or will we have to wait for a delivery owl? I'd kill for some proper bacon."

Though Snape's first reaction was to protest that he wasn't letting Potter buy him food, he had to admit that his mouth did water at the thought of proper bacon, and moreover that it would do Potter good to eat a decent meal. He had avoided having his fireplace on the Floo network, however. "Why don't you leave her with me, and you can dash out and get whatever you'd like," he suggested. When Potter looked uneasy, he rolled his eyes again. "Yesterday you were begging me to adopt her and today you don't want to trust me alone with her for fifteen minutes?"

"It's not that. I was thinking that I should go take care of a few things. Run by Grimmauld Place and pick up some more of her blankets and nappies, and maybe grab a couple of my books and anything else you think I should bring. I could stop at the grocery and get whatever else you wanted."

This was all sounding unnervingly domestic to Snape. "In my own flat, I will do my own grocery shopping," he said. " _You_ can mind the baby while I do." He had to admit, however, that fresh nappies were a good idea; cleaning charms were only fully effective so many times. "If you wish to stop at your home to retrieve Lily's things, I shall use the time to research her condition. I don't suppose you have a self-warming blanket? Or a bouncing chair?"

"Both, actually." Potter brightened a bit. "But she usually kicks off the blanket, and she screams if I leave her in the chair for more than a couple of minutes."

Snape suspected that it was being ignored and not the blanket or the chair that Lily resented. "I assume you are capable of performing a charm to shrink them and transport them here."

"Absolutely." Potter nodded, looking around. "Do you know where I left my socks? I had better bring some clean clothes for me, too."

Snape felt another little tendril of unease curling around him, a devil's snare of domesticity with which he had no experience and for which he had no desire. A sharp retort formed at the back of his mouth, oozed along his tongue, but what came out was, " _Accio_ Potter's socks." Lily cooed as two garishly colored socks -- not the same color, mind, and colors Snape had never worn even when he'd worn clothes from the parish charity bin -- darted over their heads. Shifting Lily, Potter caught them, then handed her over so he could pull out one of the kitchen chairs and start to put them on. Snape realized he was staring a second after Potter did. He stuck out his feet, now shod in mismatched socks. One was green with crossed broomsticks, one was purple with snitches across the toes.

"A friend made them." Potter wiggled his toes in the socks. "Before he died." He hopped back on his feet, obviously not wanting to say more, and chucked Lily on the chin. "Try not to miss me too much, princess," he said, his voice laden with the affection that hadn't been much in evidence last night. For a moment he looked like he was going to chuck Snape on the chin, too, but he blinked and stepped back, recovering his aplomb quickly. "Well, back soon."

The pop of Apparition made Lily laugh.

"Let's hope _your_ socks match, young miss," Snape said with a soft snort now that the whirlwind of Potter had whirled away.

Snape was seriously reconsidering those kippers by the time Potter returned, a pack slung over his back like some perpetually unkempt Father Christmas. He'd Apparated just beside the kitchen table, close to the cot. Smiling, he set the pack -- which was actually a bedspread, Snape realized -- over the table, undoing the knot.

"Did you miss me?" he grinned.

"Don't be ridic--" Snape began before he realized Potter was talking to Lily, swathed in her cot.

Potter laughed, sorting through the packages in the bundle. "I bet you did. I've got bacon, eggs, cheese, some of that crusty bread to toast it on, and tomatoes." He had his wand in his hand, resizing the bits and bobs as he pulled them out. "No, wait, that's her stuffed pygmy puff," he corrected, waving it toward her. Two tiny hands reached toward it, so he made a few ridiculous faces while he teased her with it before surrendering it to the reaching hands. He enlarged more items with easy flicks of his wand, finally finding the tomatoes, setting aside a pile of mostly pink fluff plus an appalling assortment of what could only have been Potter's clothing. Even shrunk, the assortment, plus toys, blankets and unidentifiable objects, covered all of Snape's kitchen table.

"Was she a handful?" Potter asked, rummaging through the pile, finding a complicated assembly that could only be the bouncing chair.

"Not as much as her father," Snape said, not quite under his breath. Potter looked up, but before he could speak, Snape said, "Leave the breakfast things and the bouncing chair. I'll make breakfast while you dispatch the rest of these things into the bureau upstairs."

"I can't keep taking over your room," Potter protested, looking over toward the cot as though asking Lily for her opinion.

"No arguments on an empty stomach," Snape countered, wrinkling his nose. "Leave a change of nappy too."

Potter came bouncing downstairs when the bacon was sizzling and the eggs nearly fried. He grinned at Lily in the bouncing chair and made some sort of pink toy with wings fly around her head. "I put your gloves in the drawer with your socks," he reported to Snape. "Have you always lived alone here?"

"Yes," Snape replied shortly, flipping the bacon once more.

"Did you move here right after Hogwarts? Have you always lived alone, in general?" Potter didn't notice Snape's glare because he was busy making the toy do a flip. Lily bounced excitedly, making the chair rattle on the floor. "It's a big bureau. I thought maybe you'd shared it before."

"It came with the flat," replied Snape crossly, reaching for plates. "The Ministry confiscated much of what remained at Spinner's End before they pardoned me, so I had to replace many of my belongings."

"Spinner's End? That's where you first knew my mum, right?" Snape braced himself for a barrage of questions, but Potter's only follow-up was, "She'd be happy to have a grandchild, don't you think?"

It had been hard enough to think of Lily Evans as a mother when she had given birth to James Potter's spawn, at what seemed to Snape to have been much too young to have a child, though she had been nearly 20 when she became pregnant. To try to picture her as a doting grandmother was beyond Snape's ability, particularly on an empty stomach. Dropping a plate in front of Lily Evans's son, Snape ordered, "Shut up and eat, Potter."

Eagerly Harry picked up a fork and began to shovel eggs into his mouth. "I think you should call me Harry," he said.

"And don't talk with your mouth full." It was nearly inconceivable that Potter was now older than Snape had been when he and Potter's mother had been friends.

Not that Potter acted his age in any way; he continued to talk nearly incessantly, telling Snape where each of Lily's toys had come from and which ones Mrs Weasley had insisted were too dangerous for newborns. "Well, I hope my parents would be happy to have a grandchild, even if she's not exactly mine," Potter said, then, "Would they have cared that I'm not, you know, with a woman?"

"Your mother and I never discussed her views on unwed parenthood," replied Snape crossly, then took a sip of tea before he addressed the question Potter was really asking. "I have no idea what your parents might have said about your preference for men."

Potter set down his fork. "They didn't know about you? Or -- was that not till later? You said Slytherins don't care about that, right?"

Rolling his eyes, Snape took a bite of toast and took his time about chewing and swallowing while he decided whether he owed Potter any explanation. "As you well know, some Slytherins are just as willing as some Gryffindors to mock people for any personal quality they choose," he replied eventually, watching Potter nervously jiggle his leg, then pretend that he'd been doing it for Lily's benefit. "Your father wasn't as prone to the use of slurs concerning sexual preference as his good friend Black."

"Which is funny, because I'd have bet anything that Sirius was gay." As Snape's jaw fell open, Potter reached to take a squirming Lily from the bouncing chair. "You must have suspected. Other than some Muggle pictures of girls that I think he only kept to annoy his parents, I never heard him express any interest in a woman. We never really talked about it, though. I think he thought I was too young." Lily grabbed at the fork on the table, and Potter shifted her to his other arm. "But we were talking about you."

"We were not." Pointedly, Snape put a last bite of eggs into his mouth, even though it was cold and somewhat congealed by now. He watched Potter let Lily play with his hand. "We were talking about your parents. To answer your question, yes, I imagine it would please your mother to have that little girl named after her."

"I'm glad you think so." Potter beamed at him, rising to put Lily back in the cot. Again Snape felt the same unease at this cozy domestic scene. He knew better than to trust it; Potter was just greatly relieved to have found help with his problem. It wouldn't last, of course. "Let me wash up," Potter offered, just as Snape was about to order him to do so. Snape nearly refused, just to be contrary, but decided all of Potter's restless energy was best put to use somewhere useful.

"Very well," he agreed, pushing away from the disturbingly domestic meal. At least all the talk about grandchildren made it sound as if Potter was becoming less inclined to break the Binding Spell and keep Lily. Snape didn't know why it was so important to him that Potter, who had already been asked to assume far too much responsibility over things he had no control over at an early age, not shirk this one. "That will allow me to continue my research."

Potter was already stacking dishes in the sink, by hand and not by magic. He checked on Lily before going any further and Snape watched him leaning over the cot. "She's gone to sleep," Potter said quietly, turning to unleash a brilliant smile on Snape.

No. Not on Snape. It was just a holdover from looking down at the sleeping child. The lurch in Snape's chest was merely from having bacon after so long relying on kippers and cold porridge.

"She's pretty," Potter said, straightening and gazing down at the sleeping child. He tilted his head as if making sure of his conclusion.

"Nonsense," Snape replied, keeping his voice low. "Babies are not _pretty_. They're --" Somehow Snape found himself standing shoulder to shoulder with Potter over the cot. The tiny face was slack, perfect little lips parted, her dark lashes resting against her cheeks. She was clutching the pink ball of fluff Potter had been spinning over her head.

"They're what?" Potter asked, voice hushed but full of humor. "You don't seem like the type to say 'adorable' or 'cute'." He reached in to tuck the blanket up around Lily's shoulders.

"Nuisances," Snape muttered.

Potter tittered, quietly at least. "You're just cranky because you slept on the couch, and that's my fault, so the least I can do is this washing up." He turned toward the sink. "I barely remember what her mother looked like -- she was sick by then and screaming at me to take the baby. I thought she was nutters." He looked pensive for a moment, then visibly shook himself out of it. The smile looked a little forced but it held.

"You couldn't have known," Snape said, feeling an unaccustomed need to comfort Potter out of this unfortunate reverie.

Potter accepted even this paltry comfort. "I didn't even take her -- Lily, I mean. I just stood there and the security wizards stunned her. No one was even sure she really had a baby until Lily started crying." Snape had crossed to his work counter but wasn't even pretending to start his work. The newspaper had mainly focused on the rumors swirling around Potter and making smug innuendos about the baby's paternity, despite Potter's claims. "She just kept crying so they gave her to one of the security team." Potter's mouth twitched. "Dawlish, I think, who always gets the rubbish assignments. He gave her to me." He mimed holding a baby-sized bundle awkwardly. "No one would take her back." He sighed and looked at Snape as if for reassurance. "Once they discovered the Binding Spell, no one would hear of trying to find out any more."

Potter leaned against the sink, glancing over to the cot again. "I've done my best, but --" He ran a hand through his hair, a sign Snape recognized from his student days of distress and uncertainty.

"You brought her to me," Snape said firmly.

"And made a mess of your life, I know." Potter looked around the room, which until the evening before had held nothing pink and certainly nothing fluffy. "Um -- do you have work to do? This will just take a minute. Do you want me to help you with whatever it is?"

"As you know, the timing of potions is precise. I cannot afford to neglect my work on the weekend."

Nodding, Potter went to work on the pan spattered with bacon fat. "You should let me help you, since I've taken up so much of your time already. I'll do the cleaning if you still don't trust me around a cauldron."

Even without the gifts for potions that Malfoy and Granger had displayed, Potter was likely competent enough to chop flobberworms and measure dried hellebore. That was not, however, a reason for Snape to accept Potter's offer. "I work more efficiently alone," he said. "And you should rest if you wish to be prepared to return to the Ministry on Monday."

For a moment, Potter's expression appeared to waver between despair and relief. He shut the sink, turning slowly. "If I keep her..." he began, his voice cracking.

Snape waited. "If you keep her...?" he prompted when Potter appeared to be content to stand there with his hands dripping without speaking any further.

"Not if." Swallowing, Potter closed his eyes. "I have to stop saying 'if.' I just can't think about the rest." Snape put a dishrag in his hands and leaned back against his work counter, still waiting. Finally Potter said, "I keep thinking about Teddy. And Neville. They both lost both their parents. How can I do a job so dangerous, where I don't even know when I'll be called away, if I have a baby?"

"Are you saying you no longer wish to be an Auror?"

"I don't know!" Potter's voice rose. A moment later, so did a small cry from the cot. Snape bumped into him as they both stepped toward it, nearly falling over, fighting the urge to call Potter an idiot when another wail did not follow the first. Perhaps Lily had gone back to sleep. "I don't know what to do," Potter whispered, still holding onto Snape's arm to keep him upright. "It's not fair to keep her and keep training for the most dangerous job there is, is there? Especially when it's just me."

Despair appeared to be submerging any happiness Potter might have felt at the prospect of having a daughter. "Doesn't your friend Mr. Weasley intend to become an Auror, despite his lack of any appreciable talent at potions or charms?" demanded Snape. That, at least, got Potter's attention, and before he could argue, Snape added, "I presume that _he_ intends to have a family. Most Aurors never have to face a Dark Lord, and you have already survived more battles than any of the people in that office. Is this about your fear of orphaning the child, or your recognition that parenthood may interfere with your ambition to become the youngest Minister of Magic in history?"

"It has nothing to do with ambition," Potter hissed angrily. "Yes, I'm sure Ron probably intends to have children someday, but not now, before he's finished training, and if anything were to happen to him, he's got parents and brothers and a sister. They all try to help me, too -- Mrs. Weasley is always telling me that I'm like family, even now that she knows I'll never marry Ginny -- but it's not the same thing as _being_ family. If something happened to me, Lily would have no one."

"She would have me," Snape spat at him before he realized what he was saying.

There was, for a moment, more silence than Snape had ever heard.

"You?" Potter said, shaking his head, hiding the brief flash of bleakness Snape had seen quite clearly there. "You don't want her. You don't want anyone." He looked over into the corner then back at Snape, looking angry and defensive. "You just said she was a...a..."

"Nuisance," Snape supplied, folding his arms over his chest. He waited for the rash offer to be Lily's guardian to sound wrong or to make him regret the offer. Still waiting he said, "So are you, but I never let you get yourself killed."

Potter made a gesture with his hands. "That's not the same thing at all," he protested.

Snape knew it wasn't, but nothing about being a Slytherin had ever shown him the benefits of fighting fair. "Your dithering isn't doing her any good," he said. "It isn't good for anyone, but a tiny creature with a fragile grasp on the magical world even less so."

Potter's jaw went rigid. "I thought you understood." Something flared across his expression, quickly suppressed. "All you've been telling me is that you don't want her, and now you do? I think you're the one who's dithering."

"I don't _want_ her, Potter, I'm offering to take her in in case anything happens to you. Even my reputation can't be held against the dying wishes of the Chosen One." Potter did flinch at that, taking a step closer to Snape.

"I --" Potter pressed his lips together, looking again at the cot. "I always dreamed of being an Auror," he said, his voice tight.

"No one is stopping you," Snape countered. "Certainly not Lily."

As if Summoned, a tiny cry rose from the cot. They both whirled. Snape could feel the tension in Potter as they waited to see if she was truly awake or just fussing in her sleep. Another cry, definitely more fussy this time. Snape, by virtue of longer legs, reached the cot first. With more restraint than he would have given himself credit for, he stepped back and allowed Potter to be the one to reach under the blankets and scoop her up.

"Someone needs to be there for her, for times like this." Potter bounced the baby on his shoulder as he had done when he'd first come in the day before, but Lily let out another cry, sharp and piercing. "She's about to have one of those screaming fits."

Shaking his head, Snape headed in the other direction to prepare a bottle and administer the colic treatment. "Infants are very sensitive. Perhaps she can sense your mood, and responds to it," he said.

"So it's _my_ fault that she won't stop crying?" Potter's voice rose, as did Lily's. Hearing this, he made a visible effort to calm himself, shushing her in what Snape imagined he thought to be a soothing voice. "Explain to me why all of a sudden you're willing to consider taking her on," he asked Snape, dancing from one foot to the other to keep Lily in motion.

"I have no wish to take on sole responsibility for an infant any more than you do, for reasons you should well understand," replied Snape crossly as he measured the potion into the bottle. "I also have no family, and fewer friends. But I don't share your fears about the dangers of your chosen profession, given what you have already survived, so I believe the chance that I might end up responsible for her would be remote. If the most significant obstacle to your keeping this child is your concern about what might happen in the event of your untimely death, then I am willing to become her titular next of kin."

Potter had gone still while he listened, but Lily was no longer crying. She reached a small hand out to Snape as he approached with the bottle. "It isn't just about titles," said Potter in a steadier voice. "I don't want her to be raised by strangers she doesn't know. If you're serious about this, you'd have to spend time with her -- with us."

"As opposed to throwing you out on the street like I did yesterday." Snape's arms tangled with Potter's as Snape took Lily to give her the bottle. He tried to step back, but Potter kept a grip on his forearm.

"You'd actually want a connection to me? To my family, I mean? Is this your way of trying to make up because you think it's your fault Voldemort went after my mother? If I hadn't named her Lily, would you even care?"

Irritably, Snape snatched the baby away. That was a mistake: immediately she began to wail, knocking the bottle aside with a tiny fist. Her legs were stiff as they kicked at him.

"You're right," Potter said, sounding surprised. "I think she does sense our moods." He stroked Lily's forehead, speaking in what from anyone else would have sounded to Snape like intolerably affected sweet talk. "It's all right, princess, we didn't mean to yell. We think you're beautiful even when you scream." Slowly Lily quieted, squirming in Snape's arms as Potter petted her hair. "Let Uncle Severus give you your medicine..."

Snape made a small gagging noise. "Neither you nor she will ever be allowed to call me 'Uncle Severus.'"

"All right, then, what would you like us to call you? Because I'm not raising her to call you 'Professor.'" Lily made a sound that was nearly a giggle, grabbing at Potter's nose, and he reached to take the bottle from Snape, offering it to her.

"You do realize that if you try to teach a small child to say my name, I'll be stuck for life with whatever ridiculous mispronunciation she comes up with." Snape remembered some of the nicknames of his childhood. _Snivellus_ had been tame by comparison with the sewage jokes.

He felt Lily relax in his arms as Potter gave her the bottle and waited for the snare of domesticity to tighten unpleasantly around him. But Potter felt warm against his side as he leaned in to feed Lily, and Lily stared up at them both with wide, curious eyes.

"She does like you," Potter said, keeping an eye on the bottle as tiny lips wrapped around the tip. "It isn't just the mobile. She's been happier and quieter since we arrived." He turned his head toward Snape, smiling in a way that if Snape hadn't been made of sterner stuff, might have made domesticity as desirable as Po--

Sterner stuff, indeed.

"She likes attention. She'll be a handful when she grows up." Lily gurgled around the bottle as if in agreement. Snape sighed. "I suppose Severus would do for you," he conceded, letting tiny fingers grasp one of his. "We'll see what she comes up with before deciding on which ridiculous title I'll be stuck with."

Potter checked the fluid level in bottle, chuckling. "She'll be calling you 'Dad', same as me."

Even more startling than the notion of either of them being a father was the fact that Potter did not seem to mind letting Lily affix the title to Snape. The decision, if it had ever been in doubt, seemed to have been made. Potter was taking the bottle away, smiling up at Snape while a bubble of milky drool popped over Lily's lips. Snape knew that whatever mangled title she came up with between those lips, he would answer to it.

"I wouldn't go that far," Snape said. He cleared his throat. "I propose that we give this arrangement a try --" Potter looked like he was about to accuse Snape of dithering again. Snape held up one hand, the one not being monopolized by tiny fingers, balancing Lily in the crook of his arm. "Just to assure that we can spend time in each other's company without attempting to kill each other before we perform the spell that will put my claim upon her in case someone besides myself accomplishes your demise."

"A Binding Spell?" asked Potter, looking concerned. Absently he ran his fingers through the soft patch of hair over Lily's head, his arm brushing Snape's.

"A distant variation," Snape assured him. "Very distant." Snape almost assigned him homework to look it up, but decided Potter had probably already done as much thinking for one day as he could handle. "Nothing that will harm her." He bounced Lily a few times before handing her to Potter to burp. "Or you, I suppose."

Potter laughed at his, turning her over his shoulder. "Thanks." He shook his head, rubbing circles on Lily's back. "If you weren't Professor Snape, I'd kiss you right now."

"Severus," Snape said, so startled for a moment that he made the correction automatically.

There was a warmth in Potter's expression that was very nearly speculative. "Severus, then. It almost sounded as though you wanted --"

Lily burped and Potter broke off and made cooing noises at her. "That's a good girl."


	4. Chapter 4

They did not kill each other that afternoon, as Snape finished work on a couple of potions that couldn't wait until the next day while Potter -- as good as his word -- chopped ingredients and cleaned up the cauldrons. Lily watched them from the bouncing chair, occasionally dozing and occasionally whimpering, though a few tricks with charms kept her happy when she didn't want her nappy changed or simply to be held and bounced by a person. Just as Snape had expected, Potter kept up a stream of inane dialogue, calling her princess and beautiful and any number of other appalling cliches. Snape refrained from complaining.

"We should go for a walk," Potter announced when they had finished working. "You've been indoors all day and some fresh air would do her good." He did not wait for Snape to agree, but went to retrieve a fuzzy pink jumper with bunny ears on the hood, which he pulled onto a squirming Lily, who whimpered at having her face covered momentarily.

"You do realize that she will probably vomit on all that pink," warned Snape.

Turning, Potter smiled at him. "She's been fine all day. Whatever you're putting in her bottles is working."

"I meant because it looks ridiculous." That only made Potter laugh out loud as he unfolded what had appeared to Snape to be a work apron but was, in fact, some sort of sling for carrying a baby. "You aren't actually going to walk around wearing that thing?"

"Why, did you want to wear it?" Potter held it out to him.

Snape tried to imagine what any of his neighbors or clients would think if they saw him carrying a fuzzy pink bunny in a sling. "When I take her, it will be in a stroller."

"Well, come with us anyway -- we can get fish and chips." Potter nodded in satisfaction, apparently certain that they key to Snape's heart lay in his stomach.

Lily fell asleep against Potter's chest practically the moment they walked out the door, and slept for nearly two hours, as they walked through the road and across the park and ate greasy fried food standing at an outdoor table as the sun set. "Doesn't she take proper naps?" Snape demanded.

Shrugging, Potter said, "Whenever I've left her alone in her crib, she's screamed for an hour. Even if I played music."

"She needs a routine. Regular sleeping hours. Scheduled feedings, once her stomach is..."

"Scheduled! She's a _baby_." Laughing, Potter peered down into Lily's scrunched face. "I don't think you can discipline her until she's old enough to sit up by herself, at least." He glanced at Snape. "You're not planning to be awful when she makes mistakes and keep her indoors filing detention slips, are you?"

Snape's eyes narrowed. "That punishment was particularly for you."

"Because you didn't like me."

"Because you never bothered to discipline yourself!"

Sighing, Potter jiggled Lily in the sling. "I know what you think, but I never played pranks like my father did or used magic to get other people into trouble. And when I snuck out of my dormitory, there was always a good reason." He looked at Snape defiantly. "You didn't answer me. Are you expecting to punish her every time she doesn't do what you want her to do?"

Snape studied the small face half hidden by a tiny fist. "Do you believe you can keep her safe -- the daughter of the Chosen One -- without proper discipline?"

He expected Potter to lash out at him but whether he feared upsetting the blissfully sleeping infant or had grown out of his childish temper, Potter looked thoughtful. His hand rested between the bunny ears, stroking absently. "I never thought about what my reputation -- what all that rubbish would mean to her, " he said with a sigh. "There will always be someone who'll remember though, won't there?"

"Someone who will want to curry favor, or worse," Snape agreed, feeling an odd sort of tightening in his chest. "No child is born knowing right or wrong or when to cry for attention and when to cry because something is wrong." Snape reached to wipe a bit of something clinging to Lily's cheek, his arm very close to Potter's. "If she has a routine, we'll know the difference, and so will she."

Potter was nodding. "But no punishment unless we both agree. I don't want her to ever be afraid of -- of either of us."

The hesitation made Snape look at him, but Potter was fiddling with one of the ears of the bunny suit, making a show of adjusting it to keep out the slanting rays of the setting sun. Snape couldn't imagine that Potter had ever been afraid of anything.

"You'd have made a good father," Potter said, looking up quickly, then back down. For a moment, given the line of his own thoughts, Snape wasn't certain if Potter meant for Lily or for Potter himself.

"I would not." Snape wrinkled his nose. "I was surrogate parent to sixteen years of Slytherins and I assure you not one of them ever felt the least bit paternal towards me."

That made Potter laugh, not loud enough to disturb Lily, then he too, wrinkled his nose. "Nappy time."

They started for home -- Snape's home. "Indeed."

There was, predictably another fuss over the sleeping arrangements. "Look, I can't keep taking over your bedroom," Potter protested. The walk and the fresh air had been invigorating, but Potter had been yawning since they'd settled down in the sitting room, while Lily was awake and eager for the attention she'd missed.

"I'm not sleepy and you are. I'll stay up with her tonight and we can begin settling her routine this week." Lily clapped her hands as if approving the idea of a routine, though actually she was reaching for one of the dragon tails on the mobile. "I'll make some adjustments for when you visit next weekend."

"Next...weekend?" Potter's jaw snapped shut mid-yawn.

Snape pursed his lips and put down the notes he was working on. "Regular routine, remember?" Snape snapped, wondering whether his rash offer was about to be thrown back into his face.

"Oh, I remember," said Potter and there was enough light by the sitting room fire to see the spots of color in Potter's cheeks. "I just hadn't expected to, um..." He was rubbing the back of his neck again.

"To what? To come back so soon?" Snape should have known their truce would wither under--

"To leave."

Snape blinked.

"You're right, of course," Potter said quickly, trying to look nonchalant and managing only to look like a fourth year explaining how his cauldron had turned to pudding. "Next weekend, right. She'll like that." He sprang out of his armchair where he'd been dozing over _The Theory and Practice of Auror Training, Level 1_ and knelt by Lily's bouncing chair. "Won't you, princess?"

"Potter --" Snape began, frowning.

"I can't stay here, I know that," Potter rattled off over-brightly.

"Potter," Snape said again, more loudly.

"I just wasn't thinking," Potter said, clearly babbling now, "I do that, you know?"

"Harry!" Snape hadn't meant to say it but it had the effect of finally getting Potter's attention. Both Potter and Lily were looking at him now, though only one of them was drooling. "In the interest of a regular routine," Snape said, choosing his words with more care than he was used to. "Perhaps it might be best to keep the current arrangement until we've concluded we won't be upsetting her by trying to kill each other."

Potter's smile flared, bright and unguarded and something Snape never thought to see directed at himself. "All right, but then you should sleep in your bed," he said.

"Not this again. I should be allowed to make some rules in my own house..."

"Rules we both agreed upon, right. So Lily doesn't get contradictory messages." Potter looked at her, and then, as if they had rehearsed it for a comic play, they both yawned at precisely the same moment, even tilting their heads the same way. Snape had to press his lips together to keep from smiling. "I can sleep out here with her..."

"Perhaps if you both sleep in a dark room, she may even sleep through the night. No more arguments. We'll set up the crib in there, and you shall have the bed."

"You know, that bed is big enough that we could share it." Potter had spoken irritably -- without thinking, as usual -- so it took a moment for his own words to sink in.

Snape watched him blush, aware that his own mouth had curved into something like a sneer. "You should be careful who you go around inviting to your bed," he said.

" _Your_ bed, you mean," Potter said dangerously. "I only invited myself. Considering that you've practically been begging me to sleep there..."

Lily made a gurgling noise. "Oh yes, you've uncovered my scheme," huffed Snape. "I agreed to take the baby in only to lure you to my bed."

Unexpectedly, Potter giggled. "It's a silly scheme. It's not like I can think about sex with a wailing baby in the room." Turning, he picked up Lily. "If I give you a bottle now, you'll let Daddy sleep for a few hours, won't you, princess?"

Lily made a coo of approval which probably owed more to the attention than the prospect of a bottle. Snape's first instinct was to insist that Potter toddle on off to bed, but Potter was already getting the bottle ready, apparently perfectly content with his one-sided conversation.

"Who's daddy's pretty girl?" he said, cooing every bit as much as she did over a brief but intense game of peek-a-boo while the formula warmed.

Snape tried to look like he was immersed in his notes when Potter, Lily in one arm and the bottle in the other, reclaimed the arm chair. "I don't know how to thank you," he said, once Lily settled down with the bottle.

"You can start by getting a proper night's sleep." He glanced at the fuzzy bundle in his arms. "You should have let me do that."

Wiping a stray drop of formula before it got onto the blanket, Potter shrugged. "I like doing this part. It was always the screaming after that made me feel..." He gave a little shudder and glanced up at Snape. "I faced down a Dark Lord and Death Eaters -- no offense --"

"None taken," Snape said, curious about where this was going.

"But I never felt as helpless and out of my league as when she started to cry and cry and there wasn't anything I could do to make her stop." He looked back down at the pink cheeks swathed in the blankets. "We won't be nuisances, I swear." He picked Lily up and maneuvered her over his shoulder. Once she'd burped, he laid her over his knees. "I'll change her nappy before I go --"

Snape held out his hands. "She doesn't need it. Go up to bed and I'll bring her up when she's ready." Potter looked uncertain, but as if acknowledging his own pledge not to be a nuisance, he nodded, lifting up carefully and crossing the space to Snape's armchair. He leaned down, placing Lily into Snape's outstretched arms. Her eyes were half-closed but she punched the air between them, kicking out against Snape's legs.

Potter was leaning down, smiling with that same adoring smile that he had in unguarded moments looking at her. Then he was looking at Snape, leaning over -- it was just a few inches -- and Snape was looking up, about to ask what else he needed. Potter's mouth brushed his cheek before he got the words out. "Thanks," he said quietly.

Snape sat and glared after Potter long after he had disappeared to go to bed, until Lily's cranky whimper brought him back to himself. He shifted the baby, who still looked drowsy, though not quite asleep; she was peering at him from beneath lowered lids.

"This is your fault," Snape told her. She only wriggled and made a small creaky noise. With a sigh, Snape lifted her, resting her head against his shoulder as his arms wrapped around her back and legs. She fit very comfortably there, and though she hadn't had a bath in hours, she smelled good...like Potter's hair, Snape realized with chagrin.

Perhaps he wasn't being fair to her. While it was unquestionably true that she would be better off remaining with Potter than risking the effects of a broken Binding Spell, and while even Snape would likely make a better guardian than some of the people likely to take in an orphan whose magic might be damaged by losing the wizard to whom she'd been bound, Snape knew that he'd been evading any thoughts about his own motives. Potter had believed he'd let himself get attached to the baby because Potter had named her after Lily Evans, but Snape knew better. By the time the war had ended, he'd realized that his promise to keep Lily's son safe had become his excuse rather than his reason. Dumbledore had seen right through him.

So when Potter had come in here with a baby, begging for help, insinuating himself into Snape's life and overflowing with gratitude, of course Snape hadn't been able to help going along with him. He'd spent more time with Potter in the past day than he'd ever done before, and apparently Potter had either become so desperate or grown up sufficiently in the interim that he was treating Snape like a friend. But even though he now knew they shared the same orientation, that didn't mean Potter was or ever would be in any way interested in Snape beyond needing someone to share the unexpected responsibility of the child.

Snape had found a way to bind Potter to him, as surely as a Binding Spell, not truly for Lily's sake but for Snape's own.

The child had become a motionless weight in his arms, drooling on his unprotected shoulder. She had fallen asleep without making a sound. Was there any possibility that Potter had exaggerated the effects of her colic just so he had an excuse to ask Snape to...no, that was absurd. If Potter had wanted to see him, he could have found any of a dozen excuses. He'd had no desire to reconnect until he had urgent need of Snape's assistance, and now, as was Potter's wont, he was allowing himself to cling to this new source of support the same way he'd attached himself to Granger and then Lupin and then Black.

Carefully Snape worked a hand behind Lily's head so he could lower her into her crib, where she jerked as if startled when he set her down, yet did not cry. He glanced over at Potter, who appeared to be fast asleep, curled up on the far side of Snape's bed. Unable to face the prospect of an entire night on the sofa -- Potter had been right, it wasn't comfortable even with an inflation charm -- Snape sat on the edge of the bed and watched both Potter and the baby. After a few minutes he summoned his book. Rationalizing that if Lily fussed, he might be able to get to her before she woke Potter, he set a pillow against the headboard and settled back to read.

It must have been several hours later that he woke, still propped against his own headboard. There were soft fussing noises from the cot but Snape could not move. Potter had shifted, leaning against Snape's leg, one hand spread over his thigh.

The fact that Snape had an erection was not helping.

"Coming, prin --" Bugger it. "Coming, princess," he called out softly. As gently as he could he lifted Potter's hand and returned it. There wasn't really a good place to put it except back onto Potter's body, since he'd slid over so far in the bed.

"Wha --" Potter mumbled, sleepily.

"Go back to sleep," Snape ordered, still trying to be quiet lest Lily wake up more fully.

But Potter had never listened to any one of Snape's orders over the years, and apparently, even sleeping, he did not intend to start now. His eyes were fluttering open and he groaned, rolling over and shielding his eyes with one arm. "Fuck."

"Not in front of the baby," Snape hissed as Potter slid his arm away and started to sit up. "I said I'll take care of it. Go back to sleep." Snape was already summoning the bottle he'd left downstairs.

Potter hovered, still looking sleepy and grumpy and rumpled and kissable. He shook his head, then looked over to Snape's side of the bed. "Were you --"

The bottle arrived and Snape started the warming charm on it before reaching under the pink pile of blankets for Lily. Her eyes were crinkled as she reached for a stray lock of Snape's hair, fisting it happily as though he'd given her one of the silver rattles that Lucius Malfoy considered appropriate playthings for infants.

"Was I what?" Snape asked, testing the formula before offering it to Lily's eager mouth.

"You were," Potter said, sliding his hand over the indentation where Snape's bottom had been moments before. "You were in bed with me." He looked pleased by this.

"Just to be close in case --" Snape began, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. Potter immediately peered over and offered a finger for her other hand, but she stubbornly held onto Snape's hair.

"Right." Potter had kissed his cheek before Snape even had time to rebut this. Even if he'd had the inclination. "I'll get the nappy."

They had Lily fed and changed and peek-a-booed until her eyes were drooping and they looked at each other with the sort of triumph only someone who has fed and changed a baby in the middle of the night can share.

"Back to bed," Potter said, taking a turn in the loo before collapsing back into Snape's bed. He exhaled heavily, voice already slowing. "No excuses." Snape sat back on the edge. "Bed," Potter said from the other side. He'd rolled away again, his back to Snape, which made it easier to lean back against the headboard the way he'd been before. "All the way," said Potter without looking over. "We can't both be exhausted in the morning. I promise not to molest you."

Snorting, Snape slid down, tugging the covers over his legs.

"Though I might kiss you again in the morning," Snape heard, very softly, the words starting to slur.

Snape thought about pointing out that that counted as molestation, but he also thought that Potter might not do it if he made such an observation. While he contemplated his conflicting responses to such a realization, Potter and Lily both sighed in their sleep simultaneously. In the dim room, Snape glanced from the cot to the back of the head of the boy -- no, the man -- beside him.

For someone who despised having his private space infringed upon, he felt ridiculously pleased.

Well, it wouldn't do to get used to this. Soon enough, Lily would sleep through the night, and Potter would want to return to his friends and the home he'd inherited from Black. He'd be busy with Auror training, he wouldn't want to stand around Snape's workroom cleaning up and making conversation. Snape would get to see him on occasion dropping Lily off and reclaiming her, perhaps once a week for dinner, but that was all it could ever be.

With a soft sigh, he closed his eyes and waited for the exhaustion of taking care of an infant to make him stop thinking.

The heat woke Snape. He thought at first that perhaps his need for sleep had tricked him into casting a heating charm, forgetting that it was no longer winter. Then he realized that something warm was pressing against his side.

It was Potter, whose face pressed against Snape's shoulder, one arm flung across Snape's side. From the steadiness of his breathing, Snape guessed that Potter was still asleep. From the quiet across the room, Snape guessed that Lily was as well.

He tried wriggling forward, but Potter made a small noise and flopped forward, his arm sliding further around Snape. That would not do at all, particularly since Snape had woken with his customary erection. From the feel of things, so had Potter. Bigger than Snape would have guessed, too...not that he had been thinking about the size of Potter's prick, much.

Somehow he had to escape before Potter woke up and they were both mortified. He tried to flatten himself and slip out from under Potter's arm, rolling carefully onto his back, but that just meant that he was looking at Potter's face when Potter's eyes fluttered open.

"She's still asleep, isn't she?" whispered Potter.

"She won't be if you don't shut up," Snape hissed, though his angry words sounded louder than Potter's inquiry had been.

"I'll keep us very quiet." Potter grinned at him. Before Snape could begin to guess what this might mean, Potter's mouth had descended over his. He made a small noise of surprise -- that was entirely Potter's fault -- before deciding that surrendering to the kiss would be a course of action less likely to wake the baby than pulling away and risking Potter's splutter of protest.

In spite of everything -- the awkwardness and unfamiliarity and the fact that neither of them had brushed his teeth yet -- it wasn't a bad kiss. In fact, Snape was forced to admit, it seemed to be quite a good kiss, in his limited experience that had seldom, no, never involved waking up with someone snuggled against him who wanted to kiss him good morning. He kissed Potter back before he remembered that it was a terrible idea.

"You promised not to molest me," he said aloud.

"I'm not touching anything molestable." Potter grinned down at him.

It was that grin that nearly undid him. "You know what will happen, whatever we do, Lily will wake up and have to stop and we'll never know --" Something bitter choked in the back of his throat.

Potter's grin didn't vanish entirely, but faded into a smile. "I think you already know." He kissed Snape again, still smiling, despite Snape being cross and barely kissing back, merely using his reluctance as a cue to kiss him more until Snape slid and arm around him and drew him down. Potter drew back for a shaky breath. "I may have to molest you if we go any further." They'd kept their voices low, their mouths close.

"I won't be this," Snape said, trying to find fault with his decision. "I won't be a convenient outlet for you, I can't." His fingers stroked the back of Potter's neck before sliding away.

"Convenient?" Potter laughed softly, obviously not taking him seriously. Truthfully, having an erection still poking into Potter's own was probably not helping Snape's case. "I practically had to order you to share your own bed with me." Potter shook his head, shifting down so he could rest his head against Snape's chest. "We can just do this if you like. I won't molest you, but I like being close to you." He rubbed a shock of his untidy hair against Snape's shoulder. "As close as you're comfortable with, this or...or more."

Potter's unexpected burst of maturity and restraint momentarily shook Snape's own resolve. He let Potter rest against him, let the erotic energy drain away until there was simply the comfort of holding someone close. "You know we shouldn't ever go any farther than this," he said, looking at his own fingers threading through Potter's hair as if they belonged to someone else.

"I don't know anything of the sort." Potter tilted his face up at him. "Unless you aren't attracted to me, in which case, yes, I'll just try to go back to admiring you from afar."

Potter knew enough to keep his voice hushed, but Snape let out a snort of disbelief that drew a snuffle from the cot in the corner. "You're confusing admiration with loathing again," he pointed out, even though Potter was shaking his head -- well, moving his chin over Snape's chest.

"If there is one thing I don't feel for you, it's loathing. Or do you think I'd let just anyone, even someone Lily likes, be responsible for her if anything should happen to me?" Potter rested his chin against Snape's chest, looking at him. "If I was just looking for that, I'm sure any one of the Weasleys, even, God help me, Ginny would agree to that. Or Hermione or Andromeda or Professor McGonagall. And I'm pretty sure they all like me, whereas you --" He sighed and turned to lay his head back against Snape's shoulder. "I can't ever tell what you're thinking."

"I'm thinking you're a charming young man, unexpectedly saddled with too many responsibilities at too young an age," Snape said, rubbing his cheek into Potter's hair. "I'm willing to help you, even hold you like this if you desire, but I can't be something you turn to when your libido has been left alone too long."

Potter's soft chuckle drifted up. "My libido is just fine, thank you. And it's been thinking of you for a lot longer than you would think was appropriate. If I can't molest you, I may have to convince you by other means, but I'm not going anywhere until then." He rubbed his cheek against Snape when Snape's fingers stopped stroking through his hair, much as Lily would have when deprived of attention. "Unless you aren't attracted to me, as I've said."

"I'm not...unattracted to you," Snape said, his voice sounding as though the words were not certain of their welcome.

That energized Potter, enough to have him turn, once more to peer down into Snape's face. "You're not?" Snape shook his head. "You know, coming from you, that's practically a declaration of, well, something." Potter kissed him with so much pent up exuberance it was impossible not to imagine all that energy directed at Snape himself.

No amount of telling himself this wasn't wise, or that Lily would wake and interrupt them, or that Potter's youthful enthusiasm was probably the result of finally getting several decent nights asleep and would fade, could convince his prick, which had never quite gone soft and had no chance of it now with Potter not-molesting him. Snape kissed him back, telling himself it was just curiosity -- on both their parts, for surely once Potter's momentary lusts were satisfied, he would come to his senses and tell Snape that this could never happen again.

"See, isn't this nice?" asked Potter with a happy sigh, pausing for breath.

"Nice?" Snape echoed incredulously.

"Well...hot," conceded Potter with another of those irrepressible grins. "Doesn't it put you in the mood for at least a bit of molesting?"

Snape strained to listen for Lily, but there was only soft, steady breathing from the direction of the cot. Apparently, for once, the child had gone back to sleep on her own. "What precisely did you have in mind?" he asked Potter guardedly.

"Maybe more of this, for starters..." Shifting, Potter slid up against Snape, turning more fully onto his side and rubbing their lower bodies together. It had been so long since anyone but Snape himself had touched his prick that merely the pressure of Potter's thigh had him fully hard again within seconds. He heard Potter hum approval, arching against Snape's hip. "See, that's _really_ nice."

Now that he'd been forced to acknowledge that he wasn't in any hurry to put a stop to this, Snape decided that it gave him the right to make a few demands of his own. "What did you mean, your libido has been thinking of me for longer than I'd think was appropriate? You aren't saying you got an erection from watching me mix infant formula?"

Potter let out a startled laugh. "You're much too limited in your thinking," he said in the tone of a confession. "I meant completely inappropriate. As in teacher-student inappropriate."

Snape guffawed loudly enough to wake the baby, though when he realized it and silenced himself, he heard only a soft sigh, followed by more steady breathing. "Now I know you're making things up for a bit of entertainment," he hissed at Potter. "Even if you've ceased loathing me since you left school, since I've heard that absence makes the heart grow fonder, you aren't delusional enough to think I didn't know how much you despised me at Hogwarts. Don't lie to me, Potter -- I'm a far better Legilimens than you'll ever be."

"That's true," whispered Harry -- no, this was not the time to start thinking of him as _Harry_ , Snape reminded himself. "So tell me a single time you caught me thinking about how much I hated you."

"You wanted me out of your thoughts. You were furious when I intruded on your memories..."

"Because I didn't have the luxury of a Pensieve to stop you from seeing things that were really embarrassing or incriminating. If you'd found out I had fantasies about you, you'd have used them to humiliate me."

It was inconceivable to Snape that the boy who'd stared at him with such revulsion could have been hiding erotic thoughts about him. "I'd have assumed they were lies created by you to distract me," he retorted.

"Exactly. Then you'd have gone digging deeper, and you'd have figured out that they were real, and that I was always more interested in men than women, and you wouldn't only have ridiculed me, you'd have told me all the ways the Dark Lord could use that against me and how I'd personally be responsible for the destruction of the world as we knew it." Preposterously, Potter smiled at him. "That's what I always assumed, anyway, so I tried very hard to get excited about dating Cho and then Ginny. It just didn't really work. I was still thinking about this." He thrust his hips to demonstrate precisely what he meant.

"And before you ask, no, I am not using my unexpected fatherhood as an excuse to relive my schoolboy fantasies about you," Potter added, so close to what Snape actually had been thinking that he briefly considered Occluding his mind in case Potter had developed a set of skills he'd lacked as such a schoolboy. "I didn't even know you were gay until you told me a few days ago." Potter rubbed his mouth over Snape's. "Happily, blissfully, unapologetically gay." He looked up, eyes sparkling."Now, do we spend the time until Lily wakes up with me trying to convince you verbally or--"

Potter's mouth shifted to his throat, his tongue swirling over the place where Snape's pulse was suddenly thudding and Snape momentarily forgot the dangling question. "Or?" he managed around a gasp.

"Or we can see if we can be quiet enough to do this without waking her," Potter pointed out, transferring his mouth back up to Snape's.

"Yes," Snape moaned, though he was uncertain which part of which question that was the answer to, except _yes_ seemed exactly the right answer to whatever Potter was doing with his mouth. It must have been enough of an answer for Potter, who kissed parts of his neck that had only before ever seemed a place to cover up with a high collar.

"I don't think I can last long anyway," Potter murmured around a nipple. "What with you being so agreeable."

Snape didn't bother pointing out that it was impossible to be disagreeable when having one's nipple sucked, but he thought the best way to make his point was to demonstrate. Potter shifted to accommodate him, kissing many places on Snape's body that had probably never been kissed -- oh yes, definitely, he would have remembered that. Potter's evident delight in his responses -- as quiet as he could make them -- presented a gauntlet Snape had no intention of letting alone. Slytherins were, if nothing else, very competitive.

Potter moaned, and Snape nearly cried out in pure triumph. Potter's soft cries increased the closer Snape's mouth got to his prick, never loud enough to cause any discontented snuffling from the cot. They were nearly at opposite ends of the bed now, Potter's head near the top and Snape kissing down one of Potter's legs. The prick quivering before his face was quite hard, perfectly erect, and it was probably true that Potter would not last long, having a young man's libido. Snape determined to make the short span of rather frantic fellatio memorable, wrapping his mouth around Potter's cock and letting his mouth slide all the way down.

"Fuck!" Potter wailed, loudly enough that Snape immediately lifted his head in anticipation of the cry from the cot. But Lily apparently intended to catch up on all the sleep she'd missed out on during her weeks of screaming with colic, for after a brief sputtering noise that might just as easily have been intended to reassure them that she was all right, she fell silent again.

"Do something useful with your mouth, Harry," Snape whispered, bucking his hips a bit to make his point clear.

Potter laughed softly. "Did you just call me 'Harry'?"

Snape started to deny it, except that he knew he had. With a quiet harrumph, he slid his mouth back over the prick that was nudging against his chin. He had begun to suck it again when he realized that Potter was more creative, licking down the base of Snape's cock and over his balls, wrapping his mouth gently around one.

That wouldn't do -- Potter was not going to give Snape the finest blow job of his life unless Snape could claim the same privilege. He urged Potter's legs more widely apart and used his fingers where Potter was using his tongue, stroking around and behind Potter's balls, teasing the spot between them and the pucker that Snape could just feel brushing his fingertip as he stroked.

Potter muffled his whimper around Snape prick, though he pushed down on the finger. His head was bobbing over Snape, who realized that it would be mortifying if he were to finish before someone twenty years younger than himself. So he renewed his attention to the head of Potter's cock, teasing the foreskin with his tongue before sliding his mouth down and swallowing around it.

"Oh fuck, yes --" Smugly Snape thought that he was going to have to have a talk with Potter about using profanities around the baby. At present, at least, she was both too young and too tired to be paying attention, though they were also going to have to have a talk about moving her into her own room sooner rather than later.

Because if Potter was serious about wanting to continue this, Snape realized, he would have to be a fool to find any more reasons to put him off.

"Going to come," Potter moaned urgently, thrashing a bit, using his hand on Snape's prick while his mouth was busy talking.

"No shouting," Snape admonished him, taking a deep breath before taking Potter's cock all the way back into his throat. There was a barely perceptible nod of acknowledgment and Snape realized he was going to be hard pressed to follow his own advice. He felt the shudder go through Potter's body even before the spatters of seed flooded into his mouth. Snape let it coat his tongue before coaxing more out with increasingly gentle sucks until Potter's groans stilled.

He hadn't disgraced himself by coming first.

His smugness lasted only as long as it took for Potter to wrap his mouth back around Snape's prick and start to suck. It owed nothing to finesse and everything to enthusiasm but it felt so bloody good, oh yes --

Snape did forget not to shout, but it was a rather strangled cry that seemed to rise up from the balls that were being delightfully emptied by Potter's mouth.

Potter was breathing hard, leaning his cheek against Snape's leg as the convulsions stopped. There was a moment when they both listened for the soft regular breaths from the corner and when they heard those and no cries, they exhaled nearly in one breath.

"Do you believe me now?" Potter asked, his voice rougher now than it had been when they'd first discussed it. Snape didn't bother to point out that a bout of mutual fellatio, even satisfyingly frantic fellatio, did not prove anything.

"Yes," he said, in the hope rather than the belief, because Potter did believe it and Potter's beliefs had a way of becoming truth and Snape was willing to be convinced. Potter further tried to convince him by pulling into Snape's arms, as unselfconsciously certain of his welcome as Lily when either of them picked her up.

"You probably don't," said Potter with a small husky laugh. "But I know ways to convince you and I'm very determined. I never thought --" He turned his face up to look at Snape, studying his profile for so long that Snape felt like turning away.

"Well, I'm aware of that," Snape said, with much less venom than he'd been hoping for.

Potter laughed again. "Git." He kissed the underside of Snape's chin, stretching out against him. "I never thought you'd let me into your home, into your bed. I swear I didn't bring Lily here with the idea of seducing you."

"So you've said," Snape affirmed. He knew Potter was waiting for more and in a rare moment of generosity he gave it to him, and not just because of the sensual lassitude still coursing through his body. "I believe you," he said and he meant it.

They managed another hour of dozing before the insistent wail brought them upright. "Your daughter is awake," Snape announced as his feet reached the floor -- unnecessarily, since the neighbors could probably hear her.

Potter had already stumbled upright as well, but he paused to look back at Snape. " _Our_ daughter," he corrected. "Coming, princess!"

Snape realized that neither of them had washed their hands since all of the sweating and groping and coming earlier. He cast a quick charm on both of them before Potter reached the cot. Lily continued to wail even after Potter had lifted her.

"She must be really hungry."

"Either that, or she is feeling neglected after a few full hours of neglect." But Snape was holding back a smile, watching Potter dance around with Lily over his shoulder, as he went to get a bottle.

"Let me do that. She's always calmer for you."

While Snape spluttered, Potter handed him the baby and pulled on a robe. Strangely enough, Potter was right; the crying ceased, though enormous tears still hung on Lily's lashes as if she'd suspended them there to remind Snape of her plight. "Hurry up," he called after Potter, the fixed Lily with a look. "I need to put you down to get dressed. Will you be silent, please?"

He set her on the bed. Immediately Lily's lip began to tremble and a soft whimper emerged.

"None of that," Snape admonished her, tugging on his clothes as quickly as possible. He did a lot of whooshing with his arms to keep her distracted. After a few cranky noises, she fell silent, watching him. Snape was leaning over her imitating a bat with his oversized sleeves flapping when he became aware that Potter had returned and was watching from the doorway.

"If you say one word..." Snape began in his most threatening tone. Lily interrupted him with a soft cry, and Snape rolled his eyes. "Give me that bottle."

"Yes...Daddy." Potter's grin was positively wicked.

The appellation wasn't as abhorrent as it might have been a few days ago, or even a few hours ago, especially not with the memory of Potter's enthusiastic lovemaking still quite fresh. And to judge by the looks they were exchanging over the bottle, Potter was as anxious to have another go as Snape was. Anything of the sort, however, would have to wait.

"Everyone needs a proper wash," Snape decreed. "I'll take care of her while you get cleaned up."

"She doesn't like baths," Potter said in warning, but with a grin.

"Neither did Goyle," Snape replied firmly and Potter laughed and even better, didn't argue, taking over burping duties while Snape got her bath things ready. Potter had a wide assortment of them, as well as toys, mostly of the Muggle variety, to keep her busy while Snape did the work. "Now, miss," he said, carrying her downstairs, "no arguments." While he got the water ready in the sink he sent the array of toys whizzing over her head, so it looked like a rubber frog had adopted several sizes of bright yellow ducks and several improbably colored fish. The diversion worked. She fussed but relented when offered the ultimate prize -- a bit of Snape's hair to cling to while he applied the powder.

Potter appeared, freshly shaved and dressed and looking more like the young man from Snape's fantasies, er, from more recent baby-free photographs. Strangely the sight was more dispiriting than Snape expected. Surely such a handsome young man could not be long content with the likes of Snape. Then Potter leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, as though they woke up this way and exchanged pleasantries over baby baths every morning.

"Your turn," Potter said, opening admiring Lily with exaggerated looks. "Who's a pretty princess? The prettiest princess in the land? Miss Lily, my Lilybell." There was much more in this vein as they exchanged chores, Potter electing to take over the very exacting task of getting her fitted out in clothing. Snape escaped upstairs, but there was much less grumbling about Lilybells and princesses than he expected his conscience to pummel him with.

He did opt for a long soak, to mull over the odd turn his life had taken, and to examine his recent bout of carnality. Surprisingly the idea that it had been Potter wringing those cries from him was not as troubling as it might have been before they'd taken over care of Potter's -- their -- daughter. Tomorrow Potter would go back to his Auror classes and Snape would go back to work, but everything had changed. They would have to owl Molly Weasley of course, and let her know Potter would not be dropping Lily off -- Snape could set up a playpen in the corner of his shop quite easily. If things did not work out--and they seldom did for Snape -- his life would not be disrupted any further once Potter, and Lily, were gone.

And yet -- it was ridiculously easy to imagine the tiny bundle becoming a toddling thing on tiny feet, learning to speak -- calling Snape something besides "Uncle Severus" -- getting a letter from Hogwarts, going off to school --

Would Potter want him for as long as that? Snape already knew what he wanted, had known it as soon as he agreed to become her next of kin.

There was a knock on the door, very soft, as if a man holding a baby stood outside. "May we come in?"

Snape draped the washcloth over his groin just as the door was pushing open. Potter held a ridiculously pink-swathed Lily, both of them looking very pleased with themselves. "Can't a man have a little peace in his own home?" Snape grumbled.

Potter sat down on the closed toilet seat, grinning, not looking the least bit contrite that he'd interrupted Snape's bath. "Well, that's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about."

Dread clawed up in Snape's chest and he pushed upright in the tub. But Potter looked too cheerful to have anything that might cause Snape to want to hex him on his mind. He had always drawn the wrong conclusions about Potter and his motives. Snape had realized only too late how strong Potter's loyalties were to his friends and to those he loved. He had, if he needed it, evidence wrapped up in pink right here in his own bathroom. He let Potter speak.

"She was fussing a bit without you, so I brought her along," Potter said, settling Lily on his lap. "I was thinking, if you really want us to move in here, we might need, er, a bit more space. For..." His confident grin was belied by the tiny flushes of color spotting his cheeks. "Well, you know, she should have her own room. And I'll have to bring over the rest of my things." He bounced her a few times, watching the wild joy on her face. "There isn't much, really. She's got more stuff than I do."

"Are you going to let your house sit empty?" Snape asked, watching Lily rather than Potter.

"Kreacher is just as happy without me. I suppose I could let it out, or we can keep it in case we outgrow this place. There's plenty of room for you to put in a potions lab, if you wanted. Or you could live there and work here."

"Outgrow?" Snape did not believe that reorganizing to give Lily her own room would present too much trouble. "She'll be at Hogwarts before she starts demanding canopy beds and dressing tables, I should think."

Laughing, Potter nodded. "I don't think there's any doubt that she's destined for Hogwarts." He smiled mischievously. "But we might decide we want another child. I'd love to have a son."

Snape was saved by Lily's cranky grunt and the unmistakable, unpleasant smell that filled the room. "May we please deal with just one catastrophe at a time?" he asked plaintively.

"Sorry. I'll go change her." Still grinning, Potter shifted Lily's weight and stood up. He waved his wand as he left, leaving the bathroom perfumed with charmed bubbles that floated suspended in the air. Lily grabbed at one, cooing.

"We're not naming him James," Snape called out after Potter, whose voice floated back from the other room.

"Is that your only condition?"

"Or Sirius."

"What about Albus?"

"You would actually do that to your own child?" He heard Potter laugh, which made Lily giggle. Both sounds were followed by a crash, as if something had been knocked on the floor while Potter got out a clean diaper. "You had better not be breaking my things."

"Blame your daughter," Potter called back. Then his tone changed. "Who's the prettiest girl in the world?"

So this was how it was going to be. Alone in the tub, Snape allowed himself to smile.

**Author's Note:**

> ["Early To Bed, Early To Rise"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5594134) is a very loosely-connected sequel to this story.


End file.
